Classical history
has been interested, with more or less success, in the long peregrination
of the Gypsies. But all the researchers have found a lack of documental
evidence in their intention of constructing their theories. Many of the
projects are no more than castles in the air that t would not resist a
deep analysis. Most of the conclusions reached by Rromani researchers about
the history of Rroma people are reduced to mere hypothesis. Nevertheless,
even this has allowed researchers to achieve a certain degree of consensus
on some aspects of the history of the Rroma.

The road began in India ...-The Rroma people -o Rromanò thèm-
are Indian because of their origins, and European and transnational due
to their projection. The Indian origin of the Rroma people -more concretely
in the northwest of the Hindustani subcontinent, that includes the regions
of the Punjab and the Sinth- is shared by almost all the researchers. According
to the linguist Vania de Gila Kochanowski, in the IX century Islam
invaded India and the Indians that were living in the north-western territories
of the Hindustani peninsula started a great migration westward. The second
migration was produced in the XIII century, when those today called Rroma,
left their homes when the Mongolian armies arrived and finally conquered
the territory. From then on the travellers exodus was continuous.

...crossed Persia....-Doctor Donald Kenrick does not believe that
the road from India that brought Rroma to the borders of the western Mediterranean
was crossed by a uniform group of the Indian population which was going
towards the west. Kenrick thinks that "the Indian immigrants, coming from
different tribes -Sott, Sindhi-, got married, were mixed in Persia
and there formed a people designated Dom o Rom. Then, a large
part of them continued their travel to Europe, so that their descendants
are the Rroma of today". These men worked as soldiers and farmers, they
also worked as craftsmen and artists. The hungers, the invasions of the
Huns, of the Arabs or of the Mongolians, the wars and the disorders, and
the hope of finding some better living conditions in other lands caused
various groups of Rroma little by little to travel in pursuit of the Sun,
crossing the Bosphorus and arriving in Europe.

...and after some centuries the Rroma arrived
in Europe- Greece and Armenia were important
bridges in this passage from the East to the European continent. In the
middle of the XIV century Rromani shanty towns were found in nearly all
the islands of the Mediterranean and in continental Greece. According to
some authors, the first European territory where the Rroma arrived was
Corfú at the beginning of the XIV century. Little by little
the groups of Rroma extended around Europe. Depending on the customs, the
geographical area that they occupied and the dialectal variant of their
own language, large groups of Rroma were formed and they have survived
until the present time: kalé, lovari, sinti, kalderash and
manouche.

The attraction of
that which is unknown-The
first Rroma that arrived in Europe, wandering around the different countries
where they reported the most extraordinary and mysterious histories about
their origins. The inhabitants of the countries to which they arrived listened
to them fascinated, but when the magic of the unknown disappeared, they
started to be seen as invaders, when not as vagabonds, delinquents or godless.
From that moment the history of the Rroma would be full of pursuits, punishments
and incomprehension. But that will be explained later.

Present
Situation in Europe

The situation of all
the Rroma living around Europe is similar in many aspects, but there are
some particularities that make their situations quite different, depending
on the countries in which they live. Below we make a revision of the common
characteristics and also of those that make the communities different between
them, as well as of their current living conditions.

Offences of Human
rights- Nowadays,
many European Rroma have to face terrible situations, since their rights
are abused and they are also deprived of their freedom. Many are stateless,
refugees, political asylum seekers and repatriated because of the recent
Balkan wars and the events that happened after the fall of the regimes
of Eastern Europe. The international negotiations to solve the situation
caused by the disappearance of Yugoslavia have been done without the participation
of the Rromani ethnic minority that inhabit these territories. The European
Council has been able to verify on the spot that not even humanitarian
aid was equal for the Rroma who needed help compared to the rest of the
population.

Denial of the right
of asylum-At
the same time, there are many Rroma of Central and of Eastern Europe that
must flee from their countries because of the rising wave of racism and
violent assaults that put their lives in danger, so that they are
forced to ask for political asylum or refugee status in the States of the
European Union. In most of these cases, border authorities of the European
Union do not allow these people to enter their territory.

Also they condemn the
repatriation agreements signed between the member states of the
European Union and States of Central and Eastern Europe, since refugees
are treated as goods.Racism
against the RromaSoon after the arrival
of the first group of Rroma to Europe an attitude of rejection emerged
towards these strange people whose procedence was little known about, who
wore striking clothes and spoke an incomprehensible language. The red travellers
were different from any others known by the European natives, they were
rejected and feared by the white people that were living in the towns and
cities where the Rromani caravans were arriving. As a response to this
feeling of rejection, the governments began to create restrictive and racist
policies.

Persecutions and
slavery-In
the XIV century there were Romanian Rroma that were slaves of the king,
the church or the landowners. Until the XIX century they would not be free
of this ominous yoke. Joaquín Albaicín writes: "One of the
servile categories in which Rroma slaves were divided in Romania was the
skopici: Rroma who were brutally castrated so that they could work as coachmen
for the rich ladies without any risk to their husbands". In western Europe
things were not better. The Spanish monarchs constructed step by step complete
legislation against Rroma.

Racism was extended
with the colonization of other countries by the European powers. In the
biggest period of expansion and discovery of the world, Europe formulated
scientific suppositions that were promulgating the difference between
people and, above all, the superiority of some of them. This superiority
was legalizing the exploitation of individuals considered inferior.

The Nazi Holocaust-
The XX century brought more calamities
for the Rroma. In central Europe the Nazi Holocaust was born, that reached
nearly all the continent. In 1934 the Nazi regime decided which Rroma would
be sterilized with injections or castrated, in camps such as Dachau or
Sachsenhausen. Also in January 1940 the first massacre of the Rromani Holocaust
took place: 250 children were used as guinea-pigs for scientific experiments
in the concentration camp of Buchenwald. On the first of August 1944,
during the early hours, 4.000 Rroma were gassed and incinerated in Auschwitz
-Birkenau, on a night that is remembered as The night of the Rroma (Zigeunernacht).
Ian Hancock calculates that "towards the end of the II World War between
70% and 80% of the Rromani population was annihilated by the Nazis". More
than half a million people. The forgeting has just started.

The Racist parties
proliferate in Europe-The
cyclical economic crisis suffered since 1973 has contributed to the creation
in western societies of an extremely high rate of unemployment that we
can already consider chronic. This has instigated situations of rejection
to any immigrant who wants to gain access to employment market and it has
helped the recent organization of clearly racist political parties.
The Front National in France, the Republikaner in Germany,
Vlams Block and the Front National in Belgium, are some examples
of the political ideologies based on intolerance that have been appearing
in some parts of Europe.

The end of the Cold
War- After the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989 Rroma have been blamed, even from official instances, for many
of the evils that affect the States of the former Soviet area. Because
of the changes due to the disappearance of the Iron Curtain, Western Europe
has knowledge of the disastrous conditions lived in by the ethnic minorities
in those totalitarian states.

The Yugoslavian
Rroma have suffered ethnic cleansing- The
war in the former Yugoslavia caused the most important movement
of masses since the end of the II World War. The ethnic cleansing carried
out mainly by the Serbian army instigated, apart from other atrocities,
a refugee exodus to nearby Europe of almost half a million people. Chronicles
of the war have told us of the injustices committed against people from
Bosnia, the Croats, and even against the Serbs. But the Rroma have not
deserved the attention of the western mass media, while they were also
suffering the consequences of the war, without having anybody to defend
them, neither politicians or soldiers.

New forms of racism-
The phenomenon of the skin-heads,
the birth of one more of the city gangs, has acquired a huge importance,
specially when, in many cases, they have joined together with fanatic groups
of football supporters. It has been proved that there are permanent international
connections between them, always with the support of extreme right-wing
groups, even when they are not part of the same structure.

The introduction of
new technologies in the field of communication -internet, satellite,
optical fiber- has meant the end of frontiers for information. The access
to any point in the world, practically at the same moment, represents a
new concept in the organization of people. Unfortunately, one of its undesired
effects has been the traffic, through these nets, of racist and xenophobic
slogans that have been introduced by rigth-wing groups.

Some countries limit
the free traffic of people- The removal
of the internal frontiers in the European Union has caused some countries
to adopt harder measures, in order to stop the migrant flow. It
must be taken into account that the migrant population consists, of many
ethnic groups, not only of immigrants, that relatively recently began to
seek employment. Almost always we talk about European and community citizens
pleno jure, though they may belong to ethnic or cultural minorities. Their
integration, in any case would mean the loss of their identity.

In public order conflicts
the police frequently treat as delinquents those people who, due
to their physical appearance, could look like Rroma. At the same time,
being rom is a suspicious element for many police when they are
carrying out their investigations.

The legislative
disparity- Something that has made the
fight against racism and xenophobia difficult has been the disparity of
judicial and penal approaches that exist in the different countries of
the European Union. As a result, there have been very low number of convictions
of many people who are accused of committing violent acts against minorities,
which has produced, sometimes, a certain sensation of impunity.

Geographical
Distribution

It is really difficult
to quantify the number of Rroma that inhabit Europe. The current census
are not very reliable because of the traditional nomadism of the Rroma,
that in spite of being decreasing, especially in some countries, still
lasts. For these reasons all the figures given must be taken with much
caution.

The Rromani community
is about twelve million people-Today
the European Rroma form a community of 10 million people. Most of them
live in Eastern Europe, concretely eight million, while the rest of them,
almost two million, live in the European Union. The approximate
figure of the total population of Rroma living around the world is about
12 million people.

Romania is the country
with a larger Rromani population-In
graphic 2 one can observe the Rromani population which lives in 15 countries
of the European Union and the percentage that this figure represents in
every community of each country, in comparison with the majority population.
Among the rest of the European countries Romania is highlighted, with almost
3.000.000 Rroma, which corresponds to the 9,15% of the total population.

Some
Rromani Desires

Rroma have the intention
of changing many of the circumstances that negatively condition their own
existence and they also want to promote the customs that make them feel
a people united in their rich culture and diversity. These are some of
the reports, observations and desires of the European Rroma, and many of
them have been inspired by the conclusions of the I European Congress
of the Rromani Youth, that was celebrated from 6 to the 9 of November,
1997 in Barcelona.

Legal aspects- The
rights of the Rroma people should be guaranteed in a European Document
of the Rights of the Rroma that recognizes this community as a nongovernmental
cultural, ethnic minority and make it possible, with firm and continual
action of public powers to stop the criminal actions against Rroma.

The
European Union and the Council of Europe should have structures
that represent the cultural minorities like the Rroma people, who have
no state and are scattered throughout Europe as they have a relevant role
in forming an integrated Europe of united communities. The community state
should apply the recommendations, resolutions, agreements and treaties
coming from the European Union, Council of Europe and the Organization
for the Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose objective is to protect
the rights of national minorities and, in a special way, those that refer
to the Rromani rights.

An office for the
rigths of Rroma people- It is absolutely
necessary that the European authorities inspect their policies of asylum
and migration. The creation of an international office for information,
direction and advice for the rights of the Rroma people would be a great
help in the solution of these problems.

The youths bet on
their culture- The Rromani youth in Europe
express their desire of finding a road that will allow them to reach social
and cultural welfare of their people and their plenum incorporation into
the European plural society. This implies the necessary conservation of
their cultural patrimony and of their traditions.

The Rromani language
should be present in the schools- The
Rromani language should be considered as one more of the European minority
languages of the European Document of the Regional and Minority Languages,
and its lack of territoriality should not adversely effect its protection
and development. Public powers and Rromani organizations should start programmes
for training teachers to teach Rromanès in the public schools.
The programmes should include the protection of Rromani literature and
the establishment of a policy to promote Rromani literature.

To retrieve cultural
values- An investigative programme should
be carried out, incorporating various disciplines and using an international
viewpoint that could join together the ethnographic materials and would
conclude with the establishment of a European museum of the Rromani
culture. The European public institutions could guide a European school
project of Romani music and could even sponsor the conclusion of the project
of the Rromani Encyclopedia, as well as collaborate in its distribution.

To incorporate the
Rromani culture to the curricular contents- It
is necessary to make access to education easier for the Rromani youth,
not only at primary level but at secondary and university level as well.
The institution responsible should facilitate the creation of an official
training project for professional educators that can later make it possible
to introduce into schools the concepts referred to as intercultural
education. It is very important to have a Rromani in a mediating role
as a valid instrument to create awareness of the Rromani families and from
the centres of learning as a rule.

Rromani youths are
interested in the creation of a European Network of Juvenile Rromani
Associations in order to have themselves taken into account.

The role of the
young rromnià- The acknowledgment
of the role of young rromnià is essential not only in their
community but also in the rest of the society. The respect of the tradition
demands that this is adapted to the times and current circumstances. This
is one of the responsabilities of the Rromani youths, that through
constant dialogue with their elders, they should get rid of all those obsolete
practices that damage the development of the rromnià as persons.
The creation of an European Network of Rromani Women is important.

Living conditions
and health- A high percentage of
the Rromani European population live in sub-standard housing conditions
and in insanitary environments, which causes people to suffer from different
diseases. In order to encourage the improvement of health conditions it
is necessary to act on various fronts: to improve unhealthy environments,
make the health professionals aware, facilitate access to the normalized
health services and hygiene prevention campaigns.

The institutions should
start integral hygiene programmes directed at the Rromani communities that
live in poverty and conditions of exclusion. These proceedings should not
only be limited to housing but they should also relate to their environment
and they should always take into account the advice of the those who are
involved. Institutions not only European, but also national, regional and
local, together with the Rromani organizations can not postpone the undertaking
of a promotion of the training and of employment that makes
it possible for the Rroma to reach a better standard of living.

The
Rroma in Spain

Historically, the
presence of the Rroma in Spain dates back to the XVth century, when they
arrived to the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees. The first document
that gives an evidence of their presence dates from 1425, when the king Alfonso V, the Magnanimous confered a passing permit to Juan and Tomás,
who called themselves "Counts of Egypt Minor", to let them by. The name
"Egypt Minor" in spanish suggests the word gitano, they way the Rroma are
named in spanish. From then onwards, the Rroma scattered across Spain.

The Rroma are at the
present a community of 500.000 to 600.000 members in Spain. Andalusia is
the region with a higher number of Rroma, 300.000, wich means a 5% of the
population in this area. They have so much importance there that the andalusian
parliament declared the 22nd of november as the "Andalusian Rroma Day".
This day commemorates the date in which the first Rroma arrived to Andalusia
in 1465. After Andalusia, Extremadura, Madrid, Valencia and Catalonia are
the regions with a higher number of Rroma living there. Galicia, Asturias
and the Basque Country are the areas with a lower Rromani population.

The main problems of
Rroma people lie on education, employement, housing and culture. The Rroma
have always had exlusively an oral tradition. They never wrote anything.
Therefore, the level of illiteracy is still around the 60 % among the Spanish
Rroma. We are talking about people, then, who are not prepared enough to
face up the challenge of the present society and, more over, that are helpless
in front of the major society.

In regard to education,
we find a two-faced phenomenon. Several educational centers put some difficulties
for the Rroma children to study with the non Rroma girls and boys. The
schools are afraid of a parents's reaction against the Rroma, and they
don't want them to take their sons away from the school. In the same way,
the regular school doesn't include in its study programms some elements
of the Rromani culture or the social structure of the Rroma people. For
both reasons, neither all the schools have a disposal to receive Rroma
pupils nor all the Rroma parents and children see the school as something
useful for their future. The consequence is obvious: there is a high rate
of absenteeism from school among the Rroma children.

Something similar happens
in the labour sphere. Times when the Rroma were valued for their knowledge
of cavalry or their work in the forge are very far. Mainly, the Rroma live
now from the travelling sale. But this job has enormeous difficulties because
of the reluctance of the local authorities to give selling permits. The
rest of the activities in wich the Rroma often work, very far from the
number of travelling sellers, are agriculture, paper or scrap collection,
antiques or artistic activities. In other sectors the Rroma normally have
to deal with problems because of their lack of professional skills and
the prejudices they find at work. A few employers dare to employ or less
still to offer responsability positions to a Rrom. As a consequence, and
without any precise stadistic, the unemployment rate among the Rroma people
is extremely high. Fortunately, this situation is changing and nowadays
the number of Rroma university students is increasing every day.

In the field of housing
we find the same analogous phenomenon of discrimination. The few Rroma
people who still live as travellers all over the european continent see
how their movements are conditioned by the numerous legislations and ordinances
that veto the right to camp in the public terrains. At the present time
european Rromani population is mainly sedentary. An important part of them
have to live in unhealthy conditions because of their economic situation,
in marginal areas of the big european cities. The numerous programms to
accommodate the Rroma find its main obstacle in the rejection of the neighbours
to accept the Rroma in their neighbourhood. Lastly, at present Rromani
culture remains in the oblivion. The majority of the institutions has exclusively
a social conception of Rroma people, forgetting the cultural aspects. It
is evident that the prior problems are housing and work. But we must not
forget that the collective identity of the Rroma people depends in large
mesure on the fact of having a common historical past, their own language,
a certain social uses and, definitively, a common history. In this sense
the efforts to promote the Rromani culture or the teaching of the Rromano
language are not enough yet.

We face, then, that
the lack of academic and occupational training, the absence of decent houses
or the lack of recognition of the Rroma people idiosyncrasy lead an important
part of them to live in marginal conditions, sub-standard housing and to
find in very difficult conditions to make a living. Some of their members
have to resort to delinquency as a way to survive. As a consequence, the
discrimination of the major society against the Rroma people is accelerating
and deny them the opportunities to get out of this situation. This is also
responsability of many institutions and media. The media frequently base
their informations on stereotypes, something that doesn't help at all to
bring into harmony the convivence of the Rromani community and the major
society.

The non-Rroma Spanish
owe a lot of things to the Rroma people. There are many contributions from
the Rromano in the spanish language and a lot of words that come directly
from the Rromano language (like chaval, for instance). There is also an
important influence of the Rromani culture in other aspects of the spanish
culture. It is said, for example, that in Andalusia "you don't know where
the Rrom ends and where the Andalusian begins".

Among the efforts to
improve the Spanish Rroma people quality of life and to promote their culture
it is remarkable the task of Juan de Dios Ramírez-Heredia, Rrom,
member of the spanish Parliament since 1977 to 1985 and of the european
Parliament (1986-94) as well. Nowadays he is the president of the Spanish
Romani Union and a representative of Spain in the Consultative Commission
"Racism and Xenophobia" of the European Union Council.

At present Spain has
several means of aids for the Rroma people through the central, regional
or local government. Generally speaking, we can affirm that it exists a
certain compromise of the authorities towards the Rroma people problems,
although it could be stronger. The main part of the incomes are given by
the own estate through the National Scheme for Rroma Devolopement, which
had a 500 milion (ptas) budget in 1996.

An important part of
the efforts in the social and cultural promotion of the Rroma have been
made by the own Rroma people. In the middle sixties the Spanish Rroma started
to organize themselves and to found associations dedicated to claim for
the recognition of their rights, the improvement of their standard of living
and the promotion of their culture. Nowadays the Rroma associations themselves
are the ones who channel a large portion of the state help.

Luckily, in Spain there
hadn't been many cases of violent racism, opposite to Germany, Austria
or the Estern Europe countries (Romania, Bulgaria or the Czech Republic,
mainly). The last case of violent racism took place in the village of Mancha
Real (Jaen, Andalusia) in 1993, when the major induced the neighbours to
set on fire the houses of the Rroma in order to expel them from there.
However, racism does exist. It exists in a subtle but constant discrimination,
which makes that when the word Rom is pronounced authomatically is associated
with criminal activities. To take an obvious example, the general secretary
of the Romani Union, Antonio Torres, couldn't come into a discotheque in
Santander last summer for the mere fact of being a Rom. These kind of circumstances
are very frequent, and it's still quite usual that the policemen ask for
the identification papers to the Rroma they find in the streets, simply
for being Rroma. We can't forget that until 1976 the by-law of the Guardia
Civil (a national security civil force) had some articles that let the
police to act at random with the Rroma and, for instance, stop and ask
them for the bills of the clothes they were wearing.

- Article:"The Roma in Spain",
by Agustín Vega Cortés, about the historical evolution of
the Rroma People in Spain.